Bleak Seasons

47

I was snoring heroically down deep in our warrens, having gone to Nod confident I could sleep in. Tomorrow nobody would have the ambition to get up to any mischief.

I was down there so far and so far out of the way that not five people knew where to find me. I was on a mission to catch up on my sleep. If the end of the world came the guys could celebrate without me.

Somebody shook me.

I refused to believe it. It had to be a bad dream.

"Murgen. Come on. You got to come see this."

No I didn't.

"Murgen!"

I cracked an eyelid. "I'm trying to get some sleep here, Bucket. Go away."

"You ain't got time. You got to come see."

"I got to come see what?"

"You'll see. Come on."

There would be no winning this. He would pester me till I lost my temper, then get his feelings hurt. But the long climb to the sunshine was not an inducement to rise.

"All right. All right." I got up and got myself together.

They didn't need to drag me out but I understood the impulse. Things had changed. Radically.

I stared at the plain, mouth open. Only, what plain? Dejagore was surrounded by a shallow lake that featured the tops of burial mounds as small islands. Each mound boasted its handful of disconsolate animals. "How deep is it?" I asked. And, "There any chance we can catch some of those critters for the pot?" With all that water down there no southerner would be guarding against sorties.

"Right now, five feet," Goblin said. "I had men go down and measure."

"Is it still coming up? Where is it coming from? Where is Shadowspinner?"

Goblin pointed. "I don't know about Spinner, but there's the water. Still coming in."

I have good eyes. I made out the water boiling and foaming as it roared out of the hills. "The old aqueduct came down there, didn't it?" Two major canals had irrigated the hill farms and fed aqueducts to Dejagore before the fighting started. The Company cut those when the southerners were on the inside. Now the city survived on rainwater and the contents of large, deep, very stagnant cisterns we knew nothing about back then.

"Exactly. Clete and his brothers figure they diverted the entire river into the canal. Same thing south of town."

Dejagore sits on a plain below the level of the country beyond the hills. Modest rivers run both west and southeast of the hills.

"I presume the boys are studying the engineering aspects?" I asked.

"Them and three dozen Taglians who had some skills the guys could use."

"Any conclusions yet?"

"Like?"

"Like how high will the water get? Are we going to drown?" If that was Shadowspinner's plan it indicated major changes in his thinking. Before, he wanted Dejagore recovered intact. This seemed a more practical and final answer to his problems, though more destructive of property—which, of course, was more valuable than any number of lives.

"They're trying to figure that out right now."

I grunted. "I take it Spinner pulled out after Lady left."

"No," One-Eye responded. "They hung around to swim. They don't get to a lot of beach parties where they come from."

"Man's not as stupid as we thought," I mused.

"Huh?"

"He floods the plain, even if he don't drown us he locks us up so tight he don't have to use hardly any men to keep us under control. He can chase Lady all he wants. We can't help her and she can't help us. For him it's better than getting reinforcements out of the Shadowlands. Longshadow's soldiers couldn't be trusted behind his back."

Thai Dei showed up. He always turned up soon after I came out, which indicated how closely we were being watched.

Thai Dei was a waste of manpower. He didn't carry many messages. He didn't understand any of our languages well enough to be a good spy for the Speaker. But he was always, always just a few steps away.

There would be a reason. The Speaker would do nothing without consideration. I just did not grasp his view of the world.

The longer I stared at the flood the more questions I came up with that needed answers soon. Most critical? How high would the water rise? How long would it take to do so? The rate of rise would slow down substantially as each vertical foot required more water volume because of the fall back of the hills, evaporation from the larger surface area, and absorption by more covered soil.

I told Goblin and One-Eye, "Dig up every educated man in town and give him to the brothers." I thought about building boats and heightening towers and securing stores. I thought about our vast and wonderful warrens and the likelihood that thousands of manhours would go for naught. I thought about how we would have to prepare ourselves mentally for lots worse if we were going to survive. I thought about Ky Dam and his talk of hard times to come.

Thai Dei stepped over when nobody else was near. "Grandfather would speak with you. Soon, if possible." His manners were impeccable. He did not call me Stone Soldier even once.

The old man must want something badly. "As you wish." I noticed the outsider Sindhu on the battlements off toward the Western gate. I could feel him watching me. "One-Eye."

"What?"

"You don't need to bark. If you want to bark I'll see if I can't have the Shadowmaster turn you into a dog."

One-Eye was startled. "Huh?"

"You guys keeping an eye on our guest?"

"Geek and Freak are taking turns. He ain't done much yet. Wandered around town. Talked to people. Tried visiting with the Taglians, here and over with Mogaba. Ours wouldn't have anything to do with him. The al-Khul Company ran him off with their swords drawn."

"Would anybody talk about him?"

One-Eye shook his head. "It's the same old shit. Maybe even worse. You better make it clear him being here wasn't your idea."

Thai Dei, listening, murmured something that sounded cabalistic. He followed with a gesture resembling that meant to avert the evil eye.

"Hey," One-Eye said. "Something can bother these guys after all."

"I'm going to go listen to their boss talk. You're in charge, but only because everybody else around here is less trustworthy than you."

"Thanks a shitload, Kid. You make a guy feel like he's on top of the world."

"Try to have something left when I get back."